QuickLook and Spotlight filters | Home page
Users of modern versions of macOS can preview WordPerfect files and search in Spotlight for their contents through the use of two filters written by Gero Herrmann. Older methods of installing these filters are unreliable, so I have created a small macOS application called WordPerfect Filters that makes these filters easily usable by your operating system. It runs under macOS 10.13 or later.
To install it, download this disk image and copy the WordPerfect Filters app to your Applications folder or any convenient folder. Run the application once (it displays a message, nothing more); this will prompt macOS to start using the filters. Do not delete the app; the filters must be present on your disk if you want to search and preview files.
To assure that the filters are working correctly, the disk image also includes a sample WPMac file that you should download to your Desktop and delete when you have seen that the filters are operating correctly. The filters may not start working until a WPMac file appears in a commonly-searched folder like your Desktop.
Preview and search any WordPerfect document: As designed, the filters can view or search (1) documents created by WordPerfect for the Mac, whatever their filenames, and (2) documents created by WordPerfect for DOS or WordPerfect for Windows, if the documents have the filename extensions .WPD and .WP (and some other standard extensions).
If you want to preview and search other files created by WPDOS or WPIN, with other filename extensions, then drag the MakeWPFilesSearchable app from the disk image to any convenient folder. If a WP file can't be previewed or searched, drop it on the app. You can drop one or more files, or a folder that contains files.
If you simply run the app, it will offer to scan your entire home folder for WordPerfect files that can't be previewed or searched, and will add an "extended attribute" to the directory listings for those files so that they can be previewed and searched. This procedure makes no change to the files themselves; it only adds information to its directory listing in macOS. The app will not scan your Library, Music, Videos, or Applications folder inside your home folder.
If you have problems with these filters, I won't be able to help, but you may be able to get answers from the WordPerfectMac user group, where many expert WPMac users exchange information.